Building Agents in Production

Contents

1. 01Building Agents in Productionp.1
   1. About This Bookp.1
2. 02The Missing Phasep.2
   1. The Demo That Killed a Good Agentp.2
   2. The Roadmap Everyone Drawsp.2
   3. What I Teach Before I Build Anythingp.2
   4. The Three Phasesp.2
   5. Lead With the Most Painful Task, Not the Most Impressive Onep.2
   6. Teaching Is Not Only the Workshopp.2
   7. The Press Was Ready. The Readers Were Not.p.2
   8. The One Question That Tells You the Truthp.2
   9. Rulesp.2
   10. Smellsp.2
3. 03Tools Over RAGp.3
   1. I Learned This Playing Dungeons & Dragonsp.3
   2. Intelligence Is Not the Bottleneckp.3
   3. The Crutch We Don't Need Anymorep.3
   4. Humans Don't Retrieve by Similarityp.3
   5. Give the Agent the Human's Toolsp.3
   6. Give the Agent a Library Card, Not an Indexp.3
   7. A Tool Built for a Human Is Not a Tool Built for an Agentp.3
   8. When RAG Is Still Finep.3
   9. Rulesp.3
   10. Smellsp.3
4. 04The Design Contractp.4
   1. "That Table Is Garbage"p.4
   2. We Design Agents Backwardsp.4
   3. Watch the Human Firstp.4
   4. Every Failure Is a Blueprintp.4
   5. Freedom to Reason, Constraint to Actp.4
   6. Constrain With Tools, Not Promptsp.4
   7. Domain Artifacts Are Goldp.4
   8. Give It the Bare Metal, or Give It an Orchestratorp.4
   9. The 80/20 Contractp.4
   10. Rulesp.4
   11. Smellsp.4
5. 05The Knowledge Problemp.5
   1. The Competition Is the Tool Itselfp.5
   2. Don't Replace the Driver. Reproduce Him.p.5
   3. The Knowledge Lives in Heads, Not on a Hard Diskp.5
   4. Lean Agentsp.5
   5. Move one: mirror their toolsp.5
   6. Move two: harvest the artifactsp.5
   7. Move three: the validation flywheelp.5
   8. Meet the Agent Where the Work Already Livesp.5
   9. What the Loop Taught Mep.5
   10. Rulesp.5
   11. Smellsp.5
6. 06The Finite Mindp.6
   1. The Context Window Is RAM, Not Diskp.6
   2. Sub-Agents: Borrowing a Fresh Mindp.6
   3. The Agent That Never Remembersp.6
   4. Anatomy of a Memoryp.6
   5. The Index Is the Bottleneckp.6
   6. You Don't Debug Mid-Flightp.6
   7. Memory Rotsp.6
   8. Two Loops, One Trapp.6
   9. The Brain Is the North Star, Not the Mapp.6
   10. Rulesp.6
   11. Smellsp.6
7. 07The Org Chartp.7
   1. A Sub-Agent Is a Tool. An Agent Is a Worker.p.7
   2. We Are Re-Deriving the Firmp.7
   3. Specialization Is the Power. Coordination Is the Catch.p.7
   4. Orchestration > Parallelismp.7
   5. The Visibility Principlep.7
   6. Governance: You Don't Ask Agents to Behave. You Make Misbehavior Impossible.p.7
   7. Agents Teach Each Other — and the Durability Trapp.7
   8. Three Layers of Soulp.7
   9. Start With One Agentp.7
   10. Rulesp.7
   11. Smellsp.7
8. 08The Glass Boxp.8
   1. You Are Running Operations Nowp.8
   2. When It Breaks: Give It a Black Boxp.8
   3. Three Places to Lookp.8
   4. It's Almost Never the Modelp.8
   5. When It Drifts: It Doesn't Show Up in a Log Tailp.8
   6. Hire It, Then Review Itp.8
   7. The HR Agentp.8
   8. What the Review Can't Bep.8
   9. The Operations Stackp.8
   10. Rulesp.8
   11. Smellsp.8